Landscape

Near the middle of this narrow landscape, a man sits on the upper story of a building. A cascading waterfall above him disappears behind the mountain, evidently flowing into a mist-laden stream the eventually meets the river at lower left. The water courses isolate the pavilion and the narrow path that leads to it. Far above is another cluster of buildings, perhaps a Buddhist monastery so isolated that it exists on another plane altogether. Lan Shen was the grandson and pupil of a far better-known painter, Lan Ying (1585-after 1664). He must have been young when he painted this work in 1659, five years before Lan Ying's own "Pine, Hawk, and Rock" (Walters 35.6). There is little indication in Lan Shen's landscape that he was following his grandfather in emulating the spare and reserved style of the Yüan [Yuan]-Dynasty masters Huang Gongwang and Zhao Mengfu. The inscription on this painting, by a contemporary named Chang Tsai, says that the man in the pavilion is moved by the twisting and thrusting mountains, the thickly growing trees, and the winding streams.